Support with Interdisciplinary Literacy

 

Interdisciplinary literacy is a concept that has risen in importance within the past few decades. It is a way to enrich students’ understanding of how various subjects (math, science, language arts) are interwoven, rather than just standalone, unrelated subjects. As teachers, we often include interdisciplinary elements in our lesson plans. Students might use art, music, and even math in writing projects, and an important objective is to do our best to relate the subject matter to our students’ lives. The three research articles I talk about in this blog post use interdisciplinary modes (photography, graphic novels, and a multimodal, music-related research project) to foster literacy skills in students and engage them in new types of writing.

One study (Wiseman, 2015) uses a literacy through photography curriculum, which combines traditional methods like writer’s workshop with photography as another form of communication. The students in this study are third graders, and are shown a black and white photograph to analyze. Their teacher asks them questions to facilitate higher thinking, and they are then assigned a project where they created their own photographs (self-portraits or photos that reflect their community). Children “naturally engage with activities that build on multiple modes” (p 538), and the students in the study were engaged in the process because it offered them a chance to use a different way to express themselves and their individuality, as well as build a sense of connection to their community.

In another study (Hughes, 2011), graphic novels were presented to two different groups of students, one in a workplace preparation secondary classroom (high academic achievement) and an alternative program for students that had been expelled (struggling academically). The students in both classrooms used graphic novels as learning materials in a project where they created their own graphic novels to reflect a story in their lives. The author noted that “The students in both case studies generally perceive themselves as not good at reading or writing; that they do not like to read and are reluctant to even try” (pp 601-602). The process of motivating students can be challenging, but introducing something that is considered to be an art form, with less text and more images, can help students think of literacy in a different way. The students incorporated their own viewpoint into their work, which is a good way to engage students by tying their work in to their own personal experience. Using graphic novels and other nontraditional modes of learning can help children connect key principles from one discipline to another. Although drawing and writing are often used together and aren’t extremely different disciplines, combining key principles from both studies can be an excellent brain exercise. The author also notes, “Students learn to focus on the key moments of their stories, using succinct and dramatic vocabulary, dialogue, and gestural or nonverbal communication” (Hughes, 604). The author also found that “the reading and writing of graphic novels can be used by teachers to engage reluctant students while developing the multimodal literacy skills needed for success in the 21st century” (p 610).

The third study I will mention (Hill, 2014), the author is a language arts teacher who used an IPM (interdisciplinary, project-based, multimodal) activity to motivate his students. They did a project that he called Tour Across America, in which the students were managers of a band that were about to go on tour in America. The students had to research venues and states, make up band names, and calculate travel costs in an engaging project that challenged them. The author noted “Students' ability to construct their own knowledge compels self-regulation” (p 453). The project taught students how to connect reading and research to real life adult experiences, and use other disciplines that they did not expect: “Students may disregard critical math concepts like calculating ratios and volume, but when they have to determine the amount of gas consumed and its cost per mile, it becomes more relevant” (p 453). Interdisciplinary projects like these are interesting and relevant ways for students to build literacy skills, especially students that are not typically interested in traditional literacy projects.

A focus on interdisciplinary literacy can help students be more successful in a subject that they typically struggle in, even if it is not writing or reading. In the Ted Talk below, Bryce Duncan, a high school senior at the time, talks about how he struggled in his calculus class until he found a way to relate functions of calculus to a music scale. He talks about how passionate he was about music, and how it suddenly clicked for him one day:

For some students, diverse, interdisciplinary projects and foci in the classroom can be the turning point or the “aha moment”, but for all students, they can be an excellent support for deepening of literacy skills.

 

 

 References

 

Hill, Archie E. "Using Interdisciplinary, Project-Based, Multimodal Activities to Facilitate Literacy Across the Content Areas." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 57, no. 6 (2014): 450-60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24034344

Hughes, J. M., King, A., Perkins, P., & Fuke, V. (2011). Adolescents and “Autographics”: Reading and writing coming-of-Age graphic novels. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 601-612. https://doi.org/10.1598/jaal.54.8.5

Wiseman, A. M., Mäkinen, M., & Kupiainen, R. (2015). Literacy through photography: Multimodal and visual literacy in a third grade classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(5), 537-544.